Dream of the Water Fayth
by Fai Gensou
Summary: This is my last chance. So I will tell my story. Just how much of Spira's past has been hidden? Tidus/Yuna, Wakka/LuLu side pairing. Rated M to be safe.
1. Chapter 1

Dream of the Water Fayth

By Fai Gensou

Disclaimer: I'm a poor college student. If I owned this I wouldn't be poor.

Note: May reference M'jai's Spira series. Because it is just that spiffy and wonderful and canon-like. And I'll be sticking more to the Japanese version, because I like some of the dialogue in that better than the English one.

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><p>Chapter 1<p>

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><p>This whole time, as she fell more and more in love with him during the pilgrimage, she thought that she would be the one leaving. It was after Yunalesca's defeat, when they devised the plan to defeat Sin without the Final Aeon, she began to hope. Hope for a life together with him. She still clung to that hope even as he revealed he would disappear after defeating Yu Yevon, hoping that he was wrong somehow. That hope grew as every moment that he stayed beyond Yu Yevon's defeat passed, as she sent her aeons.<p>

That hope died as she saw his hands waver and ripple like water, fading out enough to show his chest through them.

"I have to go." He said, apologetic. "I'm sorry I couldn't show you Zanarkand." He turned back to their friends, avoiding her eyes. "See ya." Walking to the end of the airship, away from her.

She couldn't let him go like that. She ran to him, hoping that maybe, maybe if she held him tight enough, he would stay.

But she passed right through him, something neither of them expected, her momentum tripping her after she passed through, landing on the airship's deck.

Eyes watched unseeing as a pyrefly rise out of the ship, floating up. Tears didn't come. They might later, but now all she felt was emptiness. Spira was finally free, so why did it still feel like losing?

She rose to her feet, and she said "Thank you." What else could she say that wouldn't make it harder on both of them then it already was?

She heard him come up behind her, and closed her eyes as he put his arms around her shoulders in a mimic of a hold. She could still feel his warmth as he did, and she shivered slightly as he passed through her, walking to the end of the airship before taking a running leap off of it.

Selfishly, she was glad she didn't have to watch him fade away before her eyes, like an illusion…or a dream.

The speech to the people at the stadium in Luca came right on the heels of Sin's defeat, and while potions and magic could heal physical injuries, they couldn't deal with the exhaustion, or the sense of loss. Auron's absence was easier to accept. He had accomplished what he had set out to do, and he had no more reason to stay among the living.

Tidus's absence, on the other hand, was much harder to accept. He clearly had not been an Unsent like Auron was revealed to be, which begged the question of what he was. Yuna remembered Bahamut's fayth saying that when they woke up, their dream would end. Did that make Tidus a dream, or some form of Aeon that the Fayth sent to Spira? And what of Jecht? If he was the same as Tidus, how could he have become the Final Aeon and then Sin?

Yuna was struck with the terrible sense that she had killed Tidus in a way when she sent the Fayth after Yu Yevon's defeat. But he hadn't stopped her, hadn't stopped them from defeating Sin for good, not like how he had searched for a way to keep her from dying, to find a way to defeat Sin without the Final Aeon. As much as it hurt, it was clear he had accepted this, and his resolve reminded Yuna of hers, when she reached Zanarkand, ready to place Spira before her own life.

No one on the airship was terribly surprised when, upon returning after giving her speech, Yuna retreated to Tidus's cabin, with a request to be left alone.

Yuna leaned against the door of Tidus's cabin after locking it, surveying the room. It was as messy as the previous times she had seen it. It really felt like he should come walking back any moment now, to swing her in his arms before they celebrated Sin's defeat in a more private way.

But he _wouldn't_. And never would.

Yuna stepped farther into the room, picking up the nightshirt that lay where he had thrown it, bringing it to her face. It still smelled like him. How long before his scent faded away like the rest of him?

Gathering up the shorts he had slept in as well, she laid them on the bed before turning to her obijime and obidome as she began undressing, folding each article of clothing neatly before slipping on Tidus's nightclothes. They were large on her, but she felt closer to him. Sitting down on the bed, she slide her arm under the pillow, as she tended to down when she laid down to sleep, and felt her fingers touch something.

Grabbing it and pulling it out, Yuna looked it over. It was a sphere. Wondering why Tidus would leave a sphere under his pillow, she pressed play.

Tidus's face appeared in view. "_Yuna…well I hope its Yuna. If you're not Yuna, turn this off and give it to her! She has first dibs on this!"_ Yuna giggled a little.

_"__Yuna…given that you're watching this, then Sin is gone for good…and so am I. After the war with Bevelle, Yu Yevon gathered the survivors from his side, and turned them into the massive Fayth we saw on Mt. Gagazet, using them to summon a dream. A dream of Zanarkand in its prime, untouched by the war, preserved forever through the minds and power of the Fayth, all the Fayth. And he formed an armor to protect himself while summoning, so the dream would never die. The armor was Sin, existing forever as Yu Yevon possessed every Aeon that broke through that armor."_

He looked away for a moment, before turning back.

_"__It would be easy to say that I came from this dream and leave it at that, but…you deserve the truth. I am not just a dream crafted by the Fayth. I…I am a Fayth."_

Yuna stared at his unmoving face after that declaration before she realized she had hit the pause button of the sphere without realizing it. Tidus, a Fayth? Was it possible? Possible that there was a Fayth hidden away where no one could ever find it that had passed from memory? Biting her lip, she hit the play button.

_"__I was born over a thousand years ago, and was seventeen when Zanarkand was destroyed. I had been injured, but was not in any immediate danger of dying, when Yunalesca came upon me. I tried asking for help, for healing, since as the daughter of the powerful summoner in Spira, she would have skilled in white magic, but I only managed the please. And she took that please as permission and turned me into a Fayth. My Aeon took the form of Leviathan, an ancient water deity and guardian of the original Al Bhed home island, Wutai. Needless to say, as the divisions between Yevon and the Al Bhed grew, it was decided that there could not be an Aeon in the form of a heretic god. So Yevon destroyed the temple my statue resided in, populating it with fiends and eventually banishing Omega there after ensuring my statue was buried, banning it from record that me and my Aeon ever existed. _

_"__It was then that I first entered the dream Yu Yevon had created, passing the centuries. Until I decided to…relive my life, actually relive it, not just… play back the memories like a sphere recording. I recreated my body as it would have been as in my earliest memory, and entered into it. Without realizing it, I went from being a dreamer to part of the dream. Meaning that when Auron pulled me into Spira, my body here was supported not by my statue, but by all the Fayth in Spira. Since all the Fayth in Spira are interconnected, when one Fayth is sent, all of them are sent, something that would take a summoner on Yu Yevon's level to do._ (Her, on the same level as Yu Yevon?) _Though without Yu Yevon binding them together, it might be easier to do. _

_"__I could never tell anything of this to you before. Yunalesca-or maybe Yevon, I'm not entirely sure-bound all the Fayth in a spell of silence, to keep all of us from speaking of the truth behind Sin, or revealing ourselves as Fayth if we choose to manifest in solid bodies and mingle among the population, as Fayth could do before Yevon placed the sutras inside each Chamber of the Fayth to bind their power. I'm guessing this spell broke with her death, but how could I explain any of this to you? Hell, the only way I can do this sphere is by pretending that I'm talking out a story. _

_"__I can't stay in Spira once the Fayth are sent, since the connection to my statue has been stretched to near breaking, and this body is powered by all the Fayth. But even if I could stay…I've been stuck in this limbo between life and death for a thousand years now. I can't you give children, I won't grow old with you, and when you died, I wouldn't be able to join you on the Farplane, not as long as my soul is anchored in the living world. I figure it would be easier to wait for you to join me on the Farplane, then to have a life with you only to lose you. Not that I want to join me too soon! I don't want to see you until you've had grandkids!_

_"__They say that true love is wanting the person you love to be happy, even without you. I hope that I'm man enough to be able to do that once I'm gone, but… Be happy, Yuna, even though I won't be there. _

_"__In the nightstand there's book. It's my journal. I wrote out everything, my life back before the war, when I was a Fayth, everything. The whole truth. I want you to read it. Yevon has buried the past from people for too long, and it's only by learning of the past that people learn from it. _

_"__I love you, Yuna…and I'll be waiting for you."_

Yuna had found her tears during the last part of the sphere. She held it to her chest, one of the last connections she had to Tidus, and cried. Wiping her tears away, she set the sphere down on the nightstand and was about to open the drawer when there was a knock on the door. "Yuna-chan? I brought you food."

Standing you, Yuna, walked over to the door, opening it to reveal Rikku, holding a plate of sandwiches and a glass of juice. Rikku raised an eyebrow at Yuna's clothes, but thankfully didn't comment as Yuna took the plate and glass from her. "You alright?"

Yuna paused. "I…I'm not sure. He…he left me a sphere, and his journal to read, so that I can learn everything."

Rikku nodded in understanding. "I guess I'll leave you to that then. You will tell us about it once you're done, right?"

"I will."

"'Kay, Rin's grabbed a bunch of people to help him with a tapestry that he saved from Home. It's supposed to be from the island the Al Bhed used to live on, so everyone's practically tiptoeing around it."

This got Yuna's attention. "Do you know what's on it?"

"Well I haven't seen it myself, but I think Pops said it has the Al Bhed god on it, Leviathan."

Yuna thanked Rikku for the food and closed the door. Leviathan was real then. As much as she trusted and believed Tidus, others would require proof of some sort. Placing the plate and glass on the nightstand with the sphere, she opened the drawer.

A thick notebook was the only thing inside, with Tidus's name scrawled on the cover. As messy as his handwriting was, it almost seemed to be a form of art, and she knew he could write neatly when called for.

Sitting back on the bed, Yuna propped the pillow on the headboard and pulled the blankets over her lower legs. Flipping it open, she began to read.

_"This is my last chance...to tell my story..."_

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><p>End of Chapter 1<p>

Don't expect quick updates, because I'm a junior in college, and grad school stuff is coming up. Hope you all enjoy, and let me know what you think.


	2. Chapter 2

Dream of the Water Fayth

By Fai Gensou

Disclaimer: I would think the fact that I'm writing fanfiction would be indicative of the fact I don't own the series I'm writing about.

Note: You should go and play Dissidia 012. Because Yuna kicks ass in it. As a summoner. Lightning is cool too, but it just makes me want FF13 more, and I can't afford a PS3. I hate being a poor college student that can't get a summer job. And I can't ask my parents for one, since my birthday isn't until December and Dad will not buy any more gaming systems since they would disappear into my dorm room and he wouldn't get to play with them. Later I'll probably use Japanese honorifics, since I feel it fits in better with Yevon.

On another note, please review! I can't know if people are enjoying this if you don't talk to me.

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><p>Chapter 2<p>

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><p><em>This is my last chance...to tell my story...<em>

_But where to start? What defines the beginning of a story, especially mine? _

_Given how they have been an integral part of Spira for thousands of years, I suppose the best place to start would be with the Fayth. _

_The legends say that the first Fayth were created when powerful mages summoned the gods and bound them to stone with human sacrifice. _Yuna had to stop at that line. Gods? Yevon had always preached that the Fayth were people who willing gave their souls to create aeons and fight Sin. Then again, given how much Yevon had concealed the truth, should she really be startled with this revelation?

Still…

Yuna remembered a recurring dream she had had ever since she was a child. A bird surrounded by fire, consumed by it only to be born anew. A dream of Phoenix, a being that created the world in the ancient tales of creation that even Yevon could not suppress. Maybe…

Yuna shook her head to clear her thoughts. Tidus had written this to reveal the truth, so certainly there would be answers. She turned back to the page.

_Three gods were bound in this fashion-Ifrit, Shiva, and Bahamut-before the other gods realized what mankind was doing. When the mages tried to bind a fourth god, Ramuh, he killed them all, and created an eternal storm over the area where they had attempted the binding, so mankind would always remember that the gods are not meant to be at the beck and call of mortals, and that the powers of the gods are far beyond their understanding. _

_For the gods that had been bound, there was no way to free them. None of the mages would give up their prize. The souls of the humans who were sacrificed in the binding, willing chosen as the legend goes, had merged with that of the gods', and so the bound gods only had two ways with which to interact upon the world. In the form of the human that bound them, formed of pyreflies and capable of limited magic, or by gifting a portion of their power to those they found worthy, allowing for the summoning of a dream in the form of what they had once been, but still far limited compared to the power they once were capable of. _

_After the slaughter of the mages by Ramuh, no one ever attempted to bind any other god again. However, some enterprising person modified the spell used-or created a new one, the stories aren't clear-so that a person's soul, transferred from their body to stone, could also create dreams of power, which people had started to call 'Aeons'. _

_The biggest change that arose from the creation of the Fayth was in regards to the mages themselves. They and their families gained great wealth and prestige, as people felt it fitting to respect those who could bind the gods to the will of mortals and their families. Even Ramuh's wraith did not change this, especially as the families would take it upon themselves to hunt down fiends that plagued the towns and roads, and performed sendings so the dead would not create more fiends. The families of the mages became the ancestors of the great summoning clans, who became the ruling class of Spira. Every major town or island had one, but what would become Zanarkand had the most, as it was created when eight cities, whose names have long been forgotten, merged together, and the eight clans of the cities elected a chief among them, replaced only upon death. Thus Zanarkand, a city full of machina, was known as a city of summoners. _

_Truthfully, calling it a city of summoners is a bit of a misnomer. Only about 30 percent of the city were a part of that class, since the 'summoning class' had not only summoners, but their families and vassal families. Not everyone from a summoning clan become a summoner, but in the same vein, only those who had a summoner within the last two generations-parent or grandparent really-could become a summoner. Anyone could learn black magic, but only summoners could receive Aeons, learn white magic, and perform sendings. As time passed, this started to bother people. Bevelle ultimately became the center for those people, along with Luca to some extent, and focused on the development of combat machina. _

_This was the world I born into, over a thousand years ago._

Yuna paused here. She wished that Tidus had provided a little more information about the world before the war, since the most Yevon would say was that it was a hedonistic time where machina fulfilled the wishes of man, making them lazy. But, she realized that he probably didn't know it all, and this book was really more for his story, not a history of Spira.

_I was born in summer, to Jecht, a famous blitzer who was the star of the Zanarkand Abes, and his wife Nami. I was the younger of twins, by three minutes, as I would remind my brother Shuyin when he played the older brother card. _(Tidus never mentioned having siblings…)_ Pretty much out of the womb, we were in our father's shadow. I swear people were comparing us to him before we could crawl, let alone know what a blitzball was. As much as we were shielded from the media hounds, something I later realized was probably Dad's doing, they couldn't be kept out entirely._

_Shuyin…I think he was affected more by being in Dad's shadow then me, since he was the firstborn. Sometimes it felt like his emotions were pressed onto me, making me feel what he felt. I don't think he was conscious of it, and no one else ever seemed to comment on it. We were always competing with the old man, and each other, for Mom's attention. In hindsight, Jecht never actively took Mom away from us, but five year olds doesn't understand why, when coming back from kindergarten, Mom seemed more interested in Dad's day then yours. She was a great mom, but we had come within my parents' first year of marriage (the trashier media would always say that the old man only married her because he got her pregnant), so I guess it was still some of that newlywed bliss. _

_We were seven, when it happened. I had been playing out on the houseboat deck, and Shuyin and Mom and Dad were inside. The Abes were talking about getting rid of Dad, "trading me in for a younger model" as he would put it, when he came storming out, six pack in hand, got in the powerboat that was moored with the houseboat, and speeded off. Shuyin said he had hit Mom. Mom neither confirmed nor denied, just said he was upset with the managers and went to blow off stream. The old man had reeked of alcohol, so he was most definitely drunk, something had had happened more frequently as rumors of him being replaced grew. _

_He never came back. _

_Huge searches were mounted after the 24 hour waiting period before a person is officially missing had passed. This was the most popular blitzer in Spira. Even those that hated the Abes or Zanarkand in general loved him. But they found nothing. _

_Some say he drowned. Others argued that a blitzer can't drown, and detractors argued back that a drunk blitzer could, as one had ten years before. A small portion said a fiend or a shark got him. Either way, the only thing they ever came across was the powerboat and empty bottles._

Yuna slipped the juice, wondering. "Jecht-san…died a thousand years ago. Had he been a dream? But I was able to send him…" Placing the glass back on the nightstand, she returned to reading.

_If there was one thing I could respect about my old man, he knew how to manage his money. Between his salary and the money he got for endorsements (letting others use his name and image to sell things in return for a percentage of the profit or a set sum), he had been pretty well off. He had set up trust funds for me and Shuyin each, an account to take care of the houseboat expenses and maintenance, and a general account. And Mom was listed on the accounts, so she could access the money even after he disappeared. She still went back to work afterwards, I think so she wouldn't sit in the house and waste away. But she was never the same._

_Time went on. While Mom could function well most of the time for our sake, other times she couldn't, namely around his birthday, their anniversary, and the anniversary of his disappearance. Shuyin was the one who would take care of her, and I would take care of him and her as much as he would let me. He felt he had to be the man of the house with Dad gone. It was really bad when the official notice declaring Jecht legally dead came when we were fourteen. After that, she seemed to be in another world sometimes, and couldn't work as often as she had before. _

_We were sixteen when she finally gave up. _

_I had had to stay after school that day to make up tests I had missed the week before when I was down with stomach flu (it missed Shuyin, the lucky bastard). Shuyin went home early, since he had been in a fight with three other guys that week and was suspended from playing for two months. People still couldn't realize that you do not taunt Shuyin about the old man without repercussions. _

_He found Mom in a pool of blood, her wrists slit. I didn't learn this until I came home, the neighbors whispering outside, Shuyin covered in blood trying to clean up the blood pool, but some idiot from the temple, when they came for her body, mentioned that she wouldn't receive a sending. _

_Suicides don't get Sent. The official reason was that since they accepted death while still alive, they did not need guidance to the Farplane. The real reason was an ancient, almost prehistoric, belief that those who take their own lives have committed an unforgivable sin against the gods, failing to preserve their life and taking what is only the gods to take. They used to bury suicides at crossroads, so their souls couldn't find their way, and drive a stake through their heart. Attitudes had changed, so suicides would now at least receive some form of proper burial, either at sea or cremation, but they would not have a sending performed. _

Yuna suddenly felt bad, for she had said his mother had accepted death while alive when she had appeared during their visit to the Farplane. Then she noticed a note in the margin-_don't feel bad, you didn't know_, and she couldn't help but smile. Tidus had known her well enough to know how she would feel about his mother's death, and comfort her, before she even read this.

Officially, she remembered, Yevon didn't say people killed themselves. It said that they atoned for the stain of the sin of machina use with their lives. But the whispers always remained.

_I think she would have killed herself two years earlier, when Dad was declared legally dead, if not for us. At fourteen we would have entered foster care and Dad's money into limbo. But at sixteen, we could be deemed fit to care for ourselves. Mostly at Shuyin's insistence, we dropped out of school, as anyone could do at sixteen, and tried out for blitzball. We might have been allowed to live on our own with our trust funds, but he didn't want to take that chance, since the courts would prefer that we are capable of supporting ourselves, and a job is a better sign of that. _

_I think he just didn't want to have anything to do with the old man's money. _

_We had drop the old man's name just to get a tryout, but we were judged on our skills (we had made sure of it) and made it. Me on the Abes, him with the Duggles. Shuyin didn't really care for the Duggles, but he hated the old man more and they were the Abes's rivals. I just liked the Abes more than I didn't like the old man. Not to say that we would trade places and play for the other team. All we really had to was change the part in our hair. One thing we refused to do was play against each other. Whenever the teams played against each other, we would play opposite halves of the games. The managers could never get us to budge on this point. We were all we had left, and did not want to risk it with the media comparing us should we directly play against each other. _

_Not that we played each other much attention. I had gone back to school through a night school, since I wanted something to fall back on after blitzball, and Shuyin…did whatever. I'm not sure. I know he meet Lenne, an up-and-coming songstress who happened to be a summoner. He became her guardian when they started dating, and I got drafted to help him learn to use a sword. More like learn with him so he wouldn't look like an idiot. But beyond sword training, we hardly saw each other. He pretty much moved into her apartment, and I was cramming for the tests to get my high school degree and considering college courses._

_I barely noticed when the war started. But that would soon change. _

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><p>End of Chapter 2<p>

Please review. It's not healthy for me to compliment myself.


	3. Chapter 3

Dream of the Water Fayth

By Fai Gensou

Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Does this really need to be said every chapter?

Note: Yeah, one thing I forgot about being home. Mom wants my computer. She seems to think that I don't need it now that I'm home. But I'm not playing any Final Fantasy game without a guide. I'm just too linear a thinker to play it and not miss something on at least the first play-through. Finally got a PS3, so I've been distracted with FF13. Now if Mom would only realize that I have first dibs on MY laptop… Sorry this is late, but this is a depressing chapter and I needed to be in the right mood to write it. To those who also read Wolf Pack…you try writing yaoi with your parents around. I dare you.

If anyone's noticed, I've had hints for how Shu drives people crazy in FFX-2.

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><p>Chapter 3<p>

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><p><em>Truthfully, the only reason the subsequent war was referred to as the Machina War in the centuries afterwards is because in the…uprising I guess is the best word to actually describe it…is because machina was really the only weapon the faction that sought to overthrow the ruling summoner class had. Sure, only white magic was explicitly reserved for summoners, but they also had a premium on the other kinds of magic because even if they do not become summoners, they still had magic training from a young age, meaning it was easier for them to learn other kinds of magic compared to those without a summoner background. <em>

_It couldn't even be properly called a war of summoners versus everyone else. Bevelle, the center of the Machina faction as they were called, was the resting place of Bahamut. The true story of the conflict was never properly written down or recorded with the rise of Yevon afterwards; it's hard to really pinpoint what the true causes were and who was on which side. I had been too distracted by school and blitzball to care. Even later, when I was in the dream, information on the war was hard to find. Either Yevon did not allow war to touch his 'perfect' Zanarkand, or the fayth powering it knew about as much as I did. However, since the fayth of the dream were the survivors of the summoner faction, the first option seems more likely. _

_I did care when Shuyin was called to the front with Lenne._

_They weren't among the first or second wave of summoners and guardians called. Since she was a songstress first and a summoner second, it was more important for her to stay back on the home front keeping up morale, as it were. However, it didn't take long for them to be called to the front. She could use status magic, so for awhile they had her doing that, according to Shuyin in one of the rare calls home. But as the number of summoners fell, she was soon switched to direct front line. _

_I was in the Abes' locker room when I heard the news on the radio that Lenne had been captured. Normally they wouldn't announce something like that, since every captured summoner represented another loss to the opposing side, but Lenne was a pop idol; couldn't hide the fact that she went to war, and thus couldn't hide the fact she had been captured. When I heard that, my stomach dropped. I knew Shuyin was going to do something very, very stupid._

_If he hadn't already. _

_Twins have a special connection, especially identical ones. Maybe that's why I felt like his emotions sometimes pressed down on me making them my own. Plus I knew my brother as well as I knew myself. He had probably already gone to free Lenne, and will probably be captured in the process or get himself into similar trouble. _

_Thus, it was not surprisingly when word arrived two days later that Shuyin had also been captured trying to rescue Lenne. They were the most famous summoner-guardian couple in Zanarkand, in some ways bigger then Yunalesca and Zaon, in part because they were a songstress and blitzer respectively and summoner and guardian second and in the public view more._

_Truth be told, before the war, the most news coverage Yunalesca and Zaon got after the wedding was in regards to her clothing or lack thereof._

(That really wasn't Yuna would have expected, given the reverence Yevon held towards them, Yunalesca especially.)

_It was only a day, not even 24 hours, after learning that Shuyin had been captured, that I had a dream that wasn't a dream. Shuyin and Lenne running from soldiers in a maze of hallways. Ending up in a room that held this…massive machina, the name of it unexplainably springing to mind. Vegnagun. Shuyin climbing to the top, to a control panel in the form of a keyboard, programming it to destroy the soldiers, when Lenne stopped him. The soldiers ran into the room as they embraced. The guns leveled with their chests as they formed a firing squad. _

_I woke up as the bullets impacted my -Shuyin's- chest, screaming his name. I had no doubt that what I saw had been real. Yet I didn't feel like Shuyin was dead. Lenne probably so, but I couldn't shake the feeling Shuyin was still alive despite being the target of the same attack._

_The next night I had my answer. Shuyin was in some sort of cave system, wounds field bandaged, the kind where it's to make sure one lives long enough to get proper attention. Or in this case, more suffering. The air was thick with pyreflies. I had never since so many before, and they played back images of that fateful escape attempt. Of Lenne's death. I woke up and had to rush to the toilet, the weight of my twin's guilt and despair enough to make me vomit. _

_The dream that was not truly a dream continued for seven days. I wonder if there was some sort of water in there, because normally a person can't last without water much beyond three days, but Shuyin was always stubborn. Each morning I found myself at the toilet, the increasing weight of the despair and guilt and the 'what-ifs' Shuyin played out to no avail making me ill. I didn't leave the houseboat that week. Word of their deaths trying to escape broke early in that time period, and both the Abes and Duggles camped outside, running interference with the press and getting me food. (On a side note, in gratitude later I threw a massive party with plenty of food and alcohol to thank them)._

_During that time, during the day where I dreaded being thrown back into a torment no one should suffer, I found myself searching for information about caves with pyreflies. I came across the Den of Woe. Normally that many pyreflies would generate fiends, but for some reason it doesn't have there. Something about the rock or geology of the place. Pyreflies are drawn there, but can't leave any way but the main entrance. It was used in ancient times as a prison for the worst criminals. I'm talking serial child rapist cannibal bad. They'd be tossed in alive. Some intelligent, sadistic person devised a seal on the cave entrance that would use the pyreflies to reflect their fears. Sort of like the Farplane, but a fear cage instead of a viewing portal to the realm of the dead. The last time it was used was over a hundred years ago. _

_But Shuyin was different. He wasn't seeing his fears, he was seeing his failure. Somehow, his emotions bleed out and mutated the seal, so it showed his failure over and over again, with no rest. I'm surprised he lasted seven days. _

_In some ways, I was glad when the dreams ended, because it meant Shuyin was dead. In others, not so much. He was trapped in there, since when the Den was in regular use they'd only go in and perform sendings every five years. __A__nd in hadn't been in regular use in over half a millennium. Shuyin would-could potentially be trapped in there forever. _

_…__and yet, somehow I didn't want him out. Because even in those seven days his mind was cracking. He would never move on without Lenne. His force of will would prevent a summoner from succeeding in sending him. If he got out and he couldn't find Lenne, couldn't…reassure himself that she didn't blame him for her death…all of Spira would suffer. And if Vegnagun still existed if-when I should say since sooner or later someone is gonna go in there and give him an out-that will be his weapon. _

_Zanarkand was devastated when the news broke of their deaths. For a month the entire blitzball league wore black armbands in memory of Shuyin, while I played in a black uniform. I…was in a bad place after he died. There was some anger, because the last member of my family had left me, just like Dad and Mom. I was all alone, no grandparents, aunts, uncles, or cousins. I had my teammates and my classes, but I was empty inside. I found a sphere of Shuyin and Lenne playing music together, along with a ring box in Shuyin's room. He was going to marry her. I fashioned a little boat, placed them inside, and cast it out to sea. I knew neither would have a proper burial, and that…was all I could do. _

_I tried filling that void in what, looking back, was pretty shameful. I didn't hit the booze or drugs, my childhood turning me from those (no matter how much Shuyin tried to hide the latter), so I turned to sex. I can't even remember when or where I lost my virginity-only that I did. I never kept count, but there had to be over a hundred of people that I slept with. Male and female, I wasn't picky though I never went all the way with a guy. Despite that-fog-I floated in, I remembered to do three very important things. Use protection and encourage the morning after pill for the girls. Ask if my partner was clean. Get tested very week because they might not know or being lying. I'm pretty sure I didn't leave behind 'mementos' of a happy evening, and I dodged a bullet by never getting any sexually transmitted diseases. By the time I crawled out of my funk and stopped sleeping around like a man-whore, the war was over, and to celebrate the treaty signing, there would be a blitzball game, combined with the annual Jecht Memorial Cup. _

_Officially neither side won, just a non-aggression pact while the restructuring of society took place. But Yu Yevon and his die hard supporters, who didn't want the old way of life to die, disagreed._

(I could be mean and stop here…but I won't. I'm stopping for the night, but not the post.)

_I later learned that Yu Yevon had turned them all into Fayth, in order to summon a dream of Zanarkand in its prime, gathered the pyreflies of the unsent dead leftover from the war, and crafted a shell to protect him while he summoned. A shell that had the tasks of attacking large settlements of people and of attacking machina. Sin. But like I said, I learned that later, after everything happened._

_It was the first half of the game in the Cup, against the Duggles. The Abes had scored a point (and for the rest of time I say that means we won) and I was in the middle of a Sphere Shot, having leaped outside the pool when I saw it. I really didn't have time to think as the giant mutant frog-fish-whale thing attacked. One of the blasts hit the stadium. I'm not quite sure how I survived the fall, but it was probably because I fell into the pool as it disintegrated. After getting out of the stadium-not finding many survivors-I ran towards it, since the way to solid land was in that direction. I had no sword, but I had learned some Time magic when I helped Shuyin in training to be Lenne's guardian, so I used Haste to help me get away from the fiends. _

_It didn't help when the freeway collapsed beneath my feet. _

_Regaining consciousness after the fall, I remember finding myself in sort of a sitting position. I had a broken shin, a broken femur, more than a few busted ribs, both arms were broken, a concussion, and an eight inch piece of steel rebar poking out of the right side of my chest. _

_I know if I had known even a little white magic I could have healed myself enough to move and find help. First aid is a bit more than useless when you're alone and have nothing to use for splints or bandages. Well, it was useful in that I knew not to remove the rebar, since I would have bled out. I was in bad shape, but provided I received help, I wasn't close to death, as far as I knew. _

_I don't know how long it was, listening to the sounds of what would could to be called Sin destroying my city, but Yunalesca and her husband Zaon. At the time, I recognized them as summoner and guardian given how their faces would have been splashed all over the media, but not their names. _

_I remember asking for help, for healing, or trying to, only managing to say "please" before I dissolved into a coughing fit, tasting blood. Only she didn't heal me. _

_She turned me into a Fayth. _

_Legally and morally, she shouldn't have done that. There were forms to sign, and a waiting period with psychological evaluations and everything to give a person plenty of time to think the decision over. _

_Magically, none of that mattered so long as the caster was magically stronger than the target. One of the strongest summoners in the city versus a blitzer? I had no chance._

_The one subject taboo among the Fayth, or to ask a Fayth, is about when they became a Fayth. The reason it's taboo is because even when you're a willing target…the spell, it forcibly detaches the soul from the body and attached it to stone. I think the body helps form the stone, since it is still a blood sacrifice. You scream for it to stop, but you can't, and before you realize it, you're stuck between life and death, which is itself a form of pain, because you're cut off from the physical world, unable to feel it, and at the same time sensing the world of the dead and not being able to go there. _

_The only thing you really feel in that state is the ache of being caught between your anchor stone and the Farplane. As an Aeon, you can feel the physical world, but it's muted beyond feeling attacks. I don't know how any of the Fayth before had been able to last as long as they had._

_My sense was of my body, well my soul at this point, being twisted into a serpentine form, glittering gold scales with blue highlights. Something whispered to me the name of the form: Leviathan. I flung my new body at Sin, the anger and pain and sorrow driving me. Dimly I was aware of the other Aeons trying to do what I was, but between us, we barely scratched the shell. _

_The destruction of Zanarkand complete, Sin turned out to sea, and all the Aeons were dismissed. I found myself back at my stone, Yunalesca and Zaon still there. I remember materializing, full of rage, ready to do-something-I'm not sure what, but definitely scream, since I could not attack my summoner, when I was surrounded by the glow of a teleport before the ruins of my city were replaced with an empty room. _

_That was the end of my life, and the start of the dream. More like the start of my nightmare. _

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><p>End of Chapter 3<p>

Please tell me what you think. Basement cat commands you.


	4. Chapter 4

Dream of the Water Fayth

By Fai Gensou

Chapter 4

Disclaimer: Do you THINK I own this?

Note: Yeah, my brain hasn't been in the place to write all this down. I mean it's in my head, but the actual bringing it into reality is a bit harder. The release of X/X-2 HD remaster has brought me back.

This is slowly going to become AU, mostly because I can't keep my Tidus as stupid-acting as in the game.

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><p>Chapter 4<p>

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><p>Yuna had to stop after reading how Tidus was turned into a Fayth. No one in the present day had known how to create Aeons beyond Yunalesca's unsent in Zanarkand, but nothing like what Tidus described had ever been mentioned.<p>

It was custom not to talk to the Fayth beyond seeking their Aeon and calling them. Spira's true defenders and they were treated like attack dogs.

Yuna's stomach churned as she realized that if she hadn't agreed with Tidus, hadn't asked if Sin would truly be defeated, then she would have chosen one of her guardians to suffer that fate.

Yet she felt compelled to keep reading. This was Tidus's last gift to her, and she would see what he wanted her to know.

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><p><em>My statue and I had been teleported to the Temple of Leviathan, between the island of Wutai and the mainland. Yu Yevon had promised them an Aeon, and Yunalesca 'delivered' me as promised. Things were frantic as Sin began his torment of Spira. A few summoners came and received my Aeon, and through them I saw the beginning of Spira's downward spiral. <em>

_It was shortly into Yunalesca's Calm that I first met another Aeon. Bahamut. It was really the first time I talked to anyone since my plea to Yunalesca. He explained what had happened, the chains of oath-bound silence that surrounded all the Fayth, how Yevon was being turned into a God, and about the Dream. I will admit I raged at him. I hadn't wanted any of this. Even though he was a god bound against his will, the stories of the willing sacrifices made to create Aeons had been bedtime stories in Zanarkand. When the gods were bound, the souls of the sacrifices merged with them, so they were at least partially willing in a sense. It made sense to me at the time, in my rage. Bahamut did admit that I was the only Fayth made against his will. I would not meet another Aeon until I enter Yevon's Dream, as the Fayth called it._

_Summoners came and prayed for my Aeon for 203 years. I had 467 summoners. Roughly a quarter of them were Al Bhed. In the beginning, the divide between Yevon and the Al Bhed was not very deep, and the Al Bhed could be summoners. But as time passed, the divides grew, and the Al Bhed began to be stigmatized. Sin destroyed Wutai and ravaged the chain of islands where my temple laid. Sin never attacked the temples before or since, because the priests had disabled the device that prevented Sin from attacking the temple directly, on orders of the Maesters. After that, they rounded up every summoner they could find who could summon me, from the neophyte who just gained me as her first Aeon to wizened old man I watched raise a family after his failed pilgrimage, and slaughtered them. I felt more that day than I had since Zanarkand's fall. _

_One escaped. Her name was Aerith. She was still among the Al Bhed at that time, have barely left my temple when Sin struck, healing the injured and performing sendings. She settled in Kilika with her guardian Zack, raised four children who all made it to adulthood and had children of their own. She lived to be nearly 90, impressive since the average lifespan had already dropped to under 60 years old. I watched over her and her family. I was the children's imaginary friend, warning their mother of any mischief. She never went on a proper pilgrimage. She was the only summoner who ever talked to me. Fayth could once walk among people as solid as they were, but Yevon placed seals in the Chambers, limiting that power to appearing as ghosts to only a few. _

_Near her death, her husband buried for two years, I asked her why she never tried to reach Zanarkand, why she never sought to bring another Calm. "Dying for Spira is easy. Anyone can die and say they're doing it for Spira. Living for Spira, on the other hand, is hard." She said. "I felt I could help more people by living for them than by dying for them." And she had. Her magical barriers could cover the whole port, giving people time to flee when Sin was spotted. She died in her sleep the following week. _

_That was the last time I was really in the living world. I couldn't return to my temple, which had been overrun by fiends and would soon be home to Omega. My statue was buried in the bottom of the ruins. I didn't dare manifest fully and wander Spira, worried of revealing that not even an attack by Sin could destroy a Fayth's statue (though it did destroy the seals preventing fully manifestation). I could not call up the courage to go to the Den of Woe. So I returned to Zanarkand. That was where the focus of Yevon's Dream was, and so I entered it for the first time. _

_It was painful, to see my home like nothing had happened. There were two parts to the Dream. A part where life had 'continued', for lack of a better word, like nothing had happened, and a part where one could see memories of the way Zanarkand had been. _

_There really isn't much to say on how those centuries went by. I explored every part of the city, which took about 75 years constantly awake. I meet the other Aeons. I took every class the schools in the Dream offered alongside Valefor. I hit the clubs and casinos with Shiva and Yojimbo. I played manager to the Magus Sisters' group. I ran interference while Ifrit set fires and Ixion played with the power grid. I joined every team in the league, played every position, managed the teams, and watched games with Bahamut, who had been appearing at games since the first blitzball game in the real Zanarkand. _

_The only time I set foot out of the Dream was to watch another summoner try his luck against Sin, and every time I lost hope for being free and Yu Yevon took over another Aeon and the summoner died. _

_I realized that within the Dream, I had the potential to basically relive my life, go beyond Zanarkand's Last Day, and see what could have been. Not just watch it happen, but actually experience it myself. I'd be bound into the Dream for the duration of this 'rebirth', but aside from a new summoner trying their luck, I felt there really wasn't any point in visiting Spira. Val had run some projections (she'd have been a great researcher and scientist if she'd been born in another age), which only gave Spira about another 1000 years at best before the population became unable to sustain itself. The rate of births was still barely above the rate of deaths, but it wouldn't stay that way._

_Frankly, I didn't really hope to be free. All the Fayth were bound to silence about the true nature of Sin, Yu Yevon was in no condition to be questioned, having been transformed into little more than a battery and maintainer for Sin, and Yunalesca's Unsent was unable or unwilling to admit that the Final Aeon was just not working beyond granting a brief respite from Sin._

_So I set up things for my 're-life'. The only change I made was to be an only child. Even after all this time, I…couldn't bring myself to think of Shuyin. Once everything was set up, I entered the 'projection' of my pregnant mother, deciding to sleep until I reached three or four. I did NOT want to experience life as a baby._

_I had been right about one thing. Shuyin HAD taken a lot of Dad's attention onto to him. Needless to say, I achieved no great understanding of him. _

_As the projection reached the time in my life where Dad had vanished, Bahamut came to me. He had an idea, to try and destroy Yu Yevon. I couldn't for the life of me comprehend the theory behind his plan, but I got the gist of 'send Jecht out into Spira, infused with enough power to be no different from a real person, and use him to defeat Sin.' Due to my actions, Jecht now existed in both parts of the Dream, and could be fueled by both._

_(Incidentally, it had never occurred to Yunalesca to forbid the Fayth from seeking ways to defeat Sin. She was THAT stuck inside the box)_

_I'm not sure why he came to me for 'permission' as it were, but I gave it anyway. At least I'd have a real answer behind his disappearance this time, even if I was the only one who knew it._

_His disappearance played out the way it had before, only he was seemingly pulled roughly a thousand years into the future, from his perspective anyway. _

_I got updates from the other Aeons after he left. He had landed in jail after arriving (not surprising), then had wound up a Guardian to a summoner named Braska. Not quite sure how that had happened, but I figured Bahamut had something to do with it. _

_He's like that._

_Three months after his entry into Spira, the old man became Braska's Final Aeon, helping Braska bring a new Calm. Bahamut's plan hadn't worked, but created a new wrinkle._

_When the Jecht from the Dream became an Aeon, the soul of the real Jecht was pulled from the Farplane into the Aeon. My old man, the real one, was now Sin. Or would be, once his will gave out and Yu Yevon's directive took him over._

_I may have hated him, but I would never have wished that fate on him. Or anyone. _

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><p>End of Chapter 4<p> 


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